Cold Times — How to Prepare for the Mini Ice Age Page 5
Usually, rafters are placed on 16” centers. An important point is that the closer together the rafters are placed, the greater overall roof strength as each individual rafter bears a lighter load. Increasing the rafter base and height also increases the resistance to bending under weight -- as long as the walls are beefy enough to hold up the total weight. The formal calculation is BH3/12[length] = Moment of Inertia (MOI, inertial resistance to bending). Higher MOI means greater strength
The slope of a “typical modern” roof is commonly 5:12, that is, it rises 5 inches for every 12 inches of length. If you build a steeper roof, say, 7:12, snow is a bit more likely to slip off, and so is anyone working on that roof.
A roof designed with 2x6x12 rafters, set on 8 inch centers attached to a 2x6 ridge beam, with 2x6 collars and ceiling joists – set atop 4x6 (two 2x6s wall top plates), over a wall of 2x6s on 8 inch centers – well, any modern architect would call it “overbuilding”. But the physics of that construction would provide tremendous load-bearing capacity and withstand enormous snowloads.
Even a mobile home could be retrofitted with this type of design, making an ordinarily flimsy frame into a sturdy permanent structure. Think of retrofitting a mobile home as building a new exterior for an existing home – place the new walls at 8”-12” outward from the current walls on a wide concrete or stone foundation, inset windows deeply where ones already are.
Use that space between the old and new walls as insulating space – get the heaviest, thickest insulating rolls and double them up. Or fill the space with reinforced stonework or concrete, both of which are insulating as well as providing resistance to fire, hail, and ballistic weapons.
Finish the exterior with stonework in thick mortar to provide resistance to water and strength against both snow and wind pressure. Fill the space above the old roof with the thickest insulating materials, and fill the attic below the old roof, as well. Insulate the floor and around the exterior walls with a good 12” of material, too. Make sure you use wire mesh at edges to discourage squirrel, raccoon, rats and mice from moving in.
Keep your costs down by using as much recycled and “found” materials as you can. If you live on stony land, you have free building materials everywhere. Steel beams could be utilized, as well, although the construction method requires welding skills.
When is “over-building” a sensible choice?
A-Frame, Sturdy and Comparatively Inexpensive
A-frame construction is rather like building a roof without deep walls, basically a steeply pitched roof connected to a base or to a floor-level wall. It is probably one of the most inexpensive dwellings to build, even using purchased materials, because siding is minimal (it’s mostly roof), and has very good resistance to external snow and wind loads, depending on how sturdily it is built.
The peaked area can be used as a type of loft; space is reduced here, obviously. Second story windows can be utilized as exits if snow is too deep to get out the doors.
Drawbacks of A-frames are the reduced interior light and lack of windows on the sides – not as much of a problem if we’re dealing with maintaining interior heat, rather than ‘curb appeal’.
Igloos
There is probably no simpler and more efficient structure for living in severe cold than the Inuit (Eskimo) igloo. Made from blocks of snow cut from the frozen landscape, igloos incorporate a dome-shape with a small crawl-tube entryway.
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In these old public domain drawings, you can see the relative size is small, and that each has a “window” or vent near the top.
The orientation shows all the igloos facing the same direction into the sun, perhaps to absorb heat or deal with wind. Several of them appear to have three “rooms”, each slightly larger than the one preceding it. Like a geodesic dome, these structures are very resistant to both snow and wind loads.
In spite of being constructed from frozen blocks, the interiors tend to retain body heat, melting slightly into firm glassy walls. They are virtually free to build, relying on natural materials and replaceable by just the effort of building another one. The design and placement of the blocks is a learned art, however. It is NOT the same as just burrowing a cave into a snowbank, which carries the risk of collapsing on you.
Additional interior heating is not usually needed in an igloo because its natural heat-retention stores the inhabitants’ body heat. However, one should not sit or lay directly on the frozen floor. Multiple layers of animal pelts or other thermal materials are needed to keep the cold at bay. Think of an igloo as a ‘survival pup tent’ made from ice blocks.
All Season Igloo: Earthbag
In the arid American Southwest, sun-dried adobe mud bricks were a time-tested construction material. The bricks were made from sandy mud, straw, and cements if any was available, then sun-dried until baked hard. Thick adobe walls have defied heat and cold, rain and drought, as well as earthquakes, for decades. Some adobe buildings are over a century old, proving that adobe works….in a mostly arid environment.
There is another building technique that is suitable not only in dry regions but across the country: earthbags. Picture a combination of sandbags and igloo construction, and you’ve got the idea. An earthbag is a textile or plastic bag, filled with dirt, sand, or gravel or a combination. Hundreds of bags can be filled and stacked in layers, with two runs of barbed wire between each layer for “mortar”-like stability. Earthbag domes are built in a circular style, like an igloo, and then topped up into a bullet-shaped dome or with any type of roofing desired. A slant roof works here, too. A wire frame is attached over the exterior and interior, and the whole thing is plastered with thick stucco. When dry, it’s done.
Alternatively, the dwelling could be built into a hillside. In very damp zones, extra care will be needed to assure water is diverted away from the construction and that walls resist outside pressure, including gravel around the exterior with French drains incorporated.
The construction can be made extra thick, has some excellent resistance to snow load depending on how it’s built, resists high winds, and with enough stucco and perhaps water-resistant paint could stand up to heavy rains. Because of the circular construction, it will resist quakes, as well. Ballistic resistance is like any sandbag construction, too.
Best of all, it’s very inexpensive to build. The plastic bags, barbed wire, and stucco will set you back less than $1500, in some cases as little as $600. You’ll need to be able to excavate a base (could be done by hand), and be conscious about how the structure is built (must be a true circle). But beyond that, your primary contribution is time and effort.
With some creativity, the whole thing could have a sod or “green roof” covering so it would disappear into the environment. Hobbits couldn’t have a better spot.
Online search for “earthbag construction” will give you hundreds of listings and enough images to stimulate your creativity.
Proximity
With several households on a single property, there are social and primal benefits to siting the residences near each other. This is rather like the igloos shown previously and in the tipi settlements typical of Plains Indians. With an extended family or clan or tribal setting, ease of access to other residents is a big plus for having all the homes clustered together. Personal preference and family togetherness could contribute to siting residences so that they connect, either by being side-by-side or having covered walkways or even tunnels between them. The downside, of course, is that any aggressive force can attack from all sides and pin the clustered residents in a “fatal funnel” location, from which there is no escape. Appropriate considerations might include having several “outlying” homes, to be backup residences or decoys, or having all residences face “out” so that the surroundings can be monitored at all times.
Big Picture of “Place”
The ideal that we’ve explored for “place” is:
situated above any risk of flooding
out of direct winter wind
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bsp; accessible to winter sun
has several exits, some hidden
can be heated by a wood stove
is defensible from different angles
retains heat during winter
is not obvious from roadways
surrounded by 5 acres per expected adult resident
consisting of pasture, garden, hay, and woods
has access to neighbors or a small town
has fresh water and a way to retain it
and is below latitude 40oN, or above 40oS in the southern hemisphere.
If there will be several residences, the lay of the land and expected directions from which danger may arise should guide placement and connections between them.
Given that, there probably are few places on the planet that fulfill all the ideals of place. However, each incremental movement toward this standard brings you closer to an environment that will be able to sustain you through cold times and even give you a secure base as an ice age swirls around.
Assuming that a southerly rural location with water, food production capacity, and defensibility is the ideal, such an ideal may simply be unobtainable – and this is not an excuse for failing to try to acquire the right spot! It just may not happen in time to be ready for the incoming Cold. Should you find yourself in a suburban or even urban setting, your priorities are:
Community cohesiveness
Strong defense
Access to fresh water
Capacity to grow food and small livestock (chickens, pigeons, rabbits; use lawn space for food production)
The book you need to prepare you for suburban or urban survival is A Failure of Civility: How to Defend and Protect You, Your Family, Friends, Neighborhood and America During a Disaster or Crisis by Garand and Lawson. You may be able to find copies online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Abe, or other sellers. It will be expensive. I cannot recommend this book highly enough, for its sensible approach to small area defense, which will be your greatest priority as the social system breaks down and becomes chaotic.
Survive the initial chaos and then your group can consider relocating to a more southerly rural site, ideally one that you all have contributed to and prepared in advance.
Acquisition
Not addressed, previously, is the very real issue of buying such a place. Taking on debt in a down economy with severe weather changes coming in, is NOT a good idea. You have to balance risks with rewards, when you consider a land purchase.
If you have several trusted colleagues – ideally, family – who are willing to share expenses, you may be able to purchase a parcel outright. Some members may just want a vacation place, others to live there year-around. As long as intentions and shared responsibilities are known in advance and written into enforceable contracts, you will lessen the risk for misunderstandings and hard feelings. Make sure any participant can get out of the deal easily, if they have financial or personal reversals, without damaging other participants.
Consider turning the ownership over to a Family Trust or setting up a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) as the owning entity – the most trusted member should oversee the paperwork and legal aspects, and submit everything to participants for review and agreement before finalizing. Ideally, each participant would have a SEPARATE title to a portion of the land on which they maintain their own place – the benefit is that there are fewer squabbles over who does what when and where, since everyone has their own. The risk is that if they want out and sell to a stranger, you have a stranger in your midst. Your arrangement will depend on how you assess your family members, their stability, and their willingness to participate. Some can do this, and some just aren’t suited to working together. Be realistic in your assessment.
Be creative with your arrangements. If several families are going to be paying for property, one family might live on the land with the intention of getting it ready for the others, while the rest pay off the note and move incrementally. Or perhaps land could be acquired by barter or trade, “my city house for your rural one”. Look for elderly land owners who might trade property for your work, or for keeping their place going until they pass on and it becomes yours. Involve an attorney and get everything in contracts. And there are foreclosure sales announced in local newspapers with online sites, as well, that may provide outstanding property that just requires TLC. There’s options, if you are willing to look for them and think outside the box.
It’s a good deal easier if you are living in a wilderness and can plunk your tribe’s made-on-the-spot igloos, yurts or tipis down where ever you happen to be, but in North America today there are few pieces of land that don’t already belong to somebody. Our own “back-60” trackless woodland, without a speck of electric power access or passable roadways, is privately owned. Although most city-folk would see it as wilderness, it isn’t. And if such a landowner were to find a group camping on their back-60, there would likely be some serious trouble brewing.
Keep in mind that even if a piece of land appears ownerless, it would take a genuine social collapse of Dark Ages proportions to eliminate existing legal ownership titles. Many areas have old “adverse possession” laws. Typically, you must reside on a property for a specific period of time, say 10 years, without being told by the owner to leave. At that point, you can make a claim on it. These rules are different from area to area, and likely to change or be forgotten in the face of great social calamities. Research it now, print it out, and keep copies for a just-in-case situation.
The large National Parks of wilderness woodland are not an ideal choice either, because everyone who has ever camped there will think of it when “head to the hills” becomes a survival imperative. You won’t be able to bring in enough food supplies to last through a bad winter, and many of the people who head there with a bug-out-bag on their back expecting to hunt deer and live like a lone wolf will become predatory, as well. Not a good idea.
Caveat
When the late Awakening and early Zen-slap arrive, beginning about 2018-21 or so, a large number of people will realize that they need to be in a warmer climate. Some of these will be retirees who planned to move anyway to Florida or the Virgin Islands or somewhere in South America once their pension kicked in. Some of these will be people who simply cannot tolerate the past several years’ weather extremes and intense winter chill. Some will be people who recognize the Cold Times that are incoming.
Now, imagine this: you are a local person living in a warmer climate comfortably carrying on your routine life. Suddenly, a bunch of foreigners start moving in…and their attitude is that they know better than you, have more money than you, and are going to make you live the way they want. This is the experience of all local peoples, from Arkansas rednecks to Appalachian hillbillies, and from Indonesian rice farmers to folks in Paraguayan villages, when foreigners start moving in.
This influx creates animosity, anger, and eventually legal and extra-legal actions to minimize the foreigner influence. In the recent past, some of these influx countries have simply nationalized the foreigner’s bank accounts, that is, stole the foreigner’s funds. Or foreigners become ‘fair game’ for grifters and conmen, with local courts favoring the locals no matter how egregious their theft.
If you don’t already live in the rural area in which you’d like to reside, then you are the foreigner. You won’t be welcomed, no matter how much cash you try to spread around. They won’t be impressed by your money. That, alone, will create more local anger and animosity. If times get very desperate, you’ll be a target.
For your family’s sake, do not wait to relocate with the migrating hoard. And don’t be the obnoxious foreigner. Be polite, listen, keep your word, join a local church or women’s club or volunteer for the fire department or at the senior center, contribute to the library.
Other Weather Considerations
As I am writing this, our nearby town has had its fourth “100-year” flood in three years. It was more destructive and overflowed banks and the entry and exit br
idges to town, a good 3 feet deeper than previously. Basically, bad floods are now the new normal here. People whose homes have been destroyed 3 times simply can’t rebuild in the old location.
Flooding. California will probably lose a significant portion of farmland that lies in dam overflow zones….plus the homes there, as well. Louisiana will lose rice crops this year, from the early May floods of 2017. Flooding is the primary reason to site your residence above any risk of high water, but below the tops of hills where wind and lightning can be problematic.
Lightning. A cousin of flooding, lightning is killing people worldwide at an astonishing rate – and lightning is becoming more intense and erratic at the same time. The atmosphere is becoming charged in a way that is unknown to us, and lightning is the evidence of that. This may be a consequence of the planet’s weakening magnetic shield, combined with the activity of incoming cosmic energies.
Whatever is causing it, our ancestors all over the world once built heavy rock structures that were partially buried underground called “dolmens”. In the American northeast, early settlers called the ones they found “Indian granaries”, imagining that the natives had once stored their corn in the dolmens. The Indians, however, didn’t store grain there and actually said they didn’t know who built them. Effectively, a dolmen is a heavy earth and stone covered shelter that would protect from severe and intense lightning – perhaps an early version of a bomb or storm shelter. The stronger grounded structure you build, the greater protection you will have from lightning, too.